When a fire occurs in a residential apartment building or skyscraper, etc., the combustion of indoor furniture, finishing material, and the like generally creates large amounts of toxic gases. Such toxic gases are a cause of many casualties and also pose large difficulties in firefighting and lifesaving efforts.
In general, a high-rise residential building that does not have a direct staircase has a smoke control zone, composed of a special escape staircase located in front of the inner entrance and an ancillary space of the special escape staircase.
Smoke control equipment may be provided to increase air pressure in the smoke control zone when a fire occurs in a residential space, so that the smoke created during the fire may not enter the smoke control zone where an emergency staircase is located.
The smoke control equipment may maintain a higher air pressure in the smoke control zone than the air pressure in the residential space where a fire has occurred, thereby preventing the smoke from entering the escape staircase. Thus, the smoke control equipment may prevent smoke from spreading to the whole building, prevent the people evacuating the building from suffocating on the smoke, and secure the escape staircase to allow rapid evacuation in the event of a fire.
Fire prevention code requires that, when a fire occurs, a smoke control zone must maintain an air pressure that is greater by an air pressure difference of 50 pascals (or 5.1 mm H2O) than the air pressure of the residential space, by drawing in air from the outside.
In order to maintain the pressure difference between the smoke control zone and the residential space, a fan for supplying air to the smoke control zone may be installed on the roof or in the basement. When a fire is detected by a fire detector or a smoke detector, the fan may operate automatically to supply outside air to the smoke control zone on each floor of the building and maintain the pressure difference of 50 pascals between the smoke control zone and the residential space. For this purpose, a damper may be installed, which remains closed at normal times but is opened automatically in the event of a fire, to supply outside air to the smoke control zone.
In order to maintain the pressure difference required for the smoke control equipment, it is necessary to accurately measure the leakage area of the smoke control zone.
Although fire prevention code defines leakage areas for entrance doors, windows, and elevators, the exact leakage areas cannot be found in this manner.
In the related art, the blower door test was mainly used for measuring the leakage area of a smoke control zone.
FIG. 1 illustrates a blower door test method according to the related art.
As illustrated in FIG. 1, a measuring apparatus 102 may be installed to blow air into a test room 100 in order to conduct a blower door test. Here, the measuring apparatus 102 can be installed on the door of the test room in an airtight state.
Here, the measuring apparatus 102 can include a blower fan 110 connected to a speed controller 114, and the airflow created by the rotation of the blower fan 110 may pass through a mesh 114, a Venturi tube 116, and a Pitot tube 118 and into the test room 100.
A micro manometer 120 may be connected to the Pitot tube 118, and a pressure sensor 122 for measuring the internal pressure may be installed in the test room 100. The blower test may measure the leakage area by calculating the change in pressure resulting from the air blown inside.
The blower door test as described above may entail the difficulty of having to maintain airtightness between the door and the measuring apparatus when installing the measuring apparatus. The degree of airtightness may lead to errors in the measurement data.
Moreover, since the system must maintain airtightness for the door, the size of the door may be increased, but as the size of the measurement zone is increased, it may become more difficult to maintain airtightness, and the size of the fan may also have to be increased.